Michael Pollan Quotes

In every aspect of life, including the economic dimension, we are always challenged to do the right thing. In many cases in the market system, which allows a great deal of latitude for human choice, people can get carried away to excess.

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

The quality of moral behaviour varies in inverse ratio to the number of human beings involved.

Conscience is known to be adequate in individuals; in large numbers little is to be expected of it.

Markets work; morals matter.

A free enterprise system that is not underlaid with values is bankrupt.

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.

Conscience gets a lot of credit that really belongs to cowardice.

The market has no morality

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

Making money and doing good in the world are not mutually exclusive.

You have to develop a conscience and if on top of that you have talent so much the better. But if you have talent without conscience, you are just one of many thousand journalists.

It is a wicked thing to be neutral between right and wrong.

We can assume that most people, most of the time, are moral creatures. But imagine that this morality is like a gearshift that at times gets pushed into neutral. When that happens, morality is disengaged. If the car happens to be on an incline, car and driver move precipitously downhill. It is then the nature of the circumstances that determines outcomes, not the driver's skills or intentions.

If you're in a system where you must make profit in order to survive. You are compelled to ignore negative externalities, effects on others.

If it comes down to your ethics vs. a job, choose ethics. You can always find another job.

There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules

Refrain from doing ill; for one all powerful reason, lest our children should copy our misdeeds; we are all too prone to imitate whatever is base and depraved.

I don't really consider this a political issue, I consider it to be a moral issue.

Telling the truth ... is not solely a matter of moral character; it is also a matter of correct appreciation of real situations and of serious reflection upon them.

This is not going to be easy. I'm good at being bad, but I'm bad at being good. I don't know the first thing about good deeds.

A guilty conscience means at least you have one.

There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility.

Good profits simply are not inconsistent with good behavior.

One of the key problems of the business world is that greed has become culturally acceptable.